London Heathrow has made a new pay offer to security staff after the hub airport had to cope with a 10-day strike in the run-up to Easter.

Around 1,400 members of the Unite union, who are employed as security staff at Terminal 5, walked out between 31 March and 9 April as part of an ongoing pay dispute with Heathrow Airports Ltd (HAL). 

Following the end of the strike on Sunday, Heathrow said that it had “listened to colleagues on the pay offer and have proposed changes they have asked for”.

“This is a materially different proposal, which we believe Unite should let their members have a say on,” said the airport in a statement.

Heathrow added that its service levels had been “excellent” before Easter despite the industrial action, with the airport catering for more than 221,000 passengers on 31 March, which it described as “one of our busiest days since 2019”.

“Our strong contingency plans have kept the airport running smoothly throughout the strike period,” said the airport in a statement.

Heathrow also released its traffic figures for March, which showed that 6.2 million passengers used the airport last month – an increase of one million travellers on February and a rise of 48 per cent compared with March 2022.

The region to see the largest year-on-year increase in passenger traffic was Asia Pacific with a 136 per cent rise, as the key destination of China reopened to international visitors.